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Constable’s view of Salisbury Cathedral, described as one of the great
masterpieces of British art, has been saved for the nation for £23.1 million.

The painting, which has hung on the walls of the National Gallery for the past
30 years, could have gone abroad if the deal arranged by the Tate had not
gone ahead, according to its the director, Sir Nicholas Serota.

The money from the sale of the picture, painted in 1831, will go to the
children of the late Lord Ashton of Hyde, who died in 2008.

As part of the deal, which includes tax concessions

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This newspaper was somewhat rude about the painting which came to be known "the Great Salisbury" when it was first shown (writes Valentine Low), saying: "A very vigorous landscape, which somebody has spoiled since it was painted, by putting in such clouds as no human being ever saw, and by spotting the foreground all over with whitewash. It is quite impossible that this offence can have been committed with the consent of the artist."
Since then it came to be regarded — not least by Constable himself — as one of his finest paintings, and one of the great English landscapes. In 2002 it was voted by the readers of Country Life "the best view in Britain".
There is more to it than just a gorgeous view, however. The painting, which Constable worked on for another three years after its debut at the Royal Academy, is a distillation of Constable’s political views, as well as a reflection of the grief he felt at the death of his wife in 1828.
The initial title Church Under a Cloud, suggested by his friend John Fisher, gives a clue to Constable’s thinking. In the words of Amy Concannon, assistant curator at Tate Britain, the cloud was "a metaphor for the perceived threat to the established Church of England that Catholic emancipation and political reform posed, issues that deeply troubled the artist".
She said: "Salisbury Cathedral is far removed from the noontime idyll of The Hay Wain, although the cart crossing the Avon is reminiscent of it. It is instead an eerie scene in which sunlight and showers seem at war, just as the cathedral’s spire, solid and ordered, jars against the wild, foreboding sky.
"Salisbury Cathedral is rendered an emblem for unsettling times, both private and public. But the rainbow offers hope. Much of the painting’s power and tension rests on this rainbow, the first Constable was ever to include in an exhibited work."www.artfund.org/news-pages/discover-constable/